Pixie in Paradise

The Hunger Games are Over

I’ve picked up a potentially destructive new habit while traveling. It started almost immediately upon arriving here in Central America. At first I couldn’t pinpoint what was causing my out of character behavior. I also thought I could quit any time I wanted to. That wasn’t the case so here I am, months later, addicted to porn – food porn. Specifically, I have a predilection for noodles and pasta. I cannot watch enough short videos, reels, clips – whatever you want to call them – of people making pasta recipes. And I’m not picky: Asian, Italian, American, Fusion, I am enchanted by them all. I’m embarrassed to also admit that sometimes I even enjoy…watching the chef take a bite or two! I am so sorry for any shame or embarrassment this will cause or bring upon my family, but it’s my truth right now.

In addition to being a food voyeur (that might be a slightly dramatic term to describe merely watching recipe videos), I’ve also been eating a lot of noodles and let me tell you the satisfaction of making a pasta meal, then sitting down and watching a recipe being made, like a Matteo Lane YouTube pasta video. Wow. If I smoked cigarettes, I’d need one after that experience. He tells jokes, makes pasta, all in less than ten minutes. Perfection. 

But I haven’t told you my worst depravity yet, it’s dark and definitely bad for me. Here goes: after I go to bed and am so tired I can’t keep my eyes open enough to read, I put down my book. Instead of rolling over and closing my eyes to sleep, I often reach for the iPhone and proceed to watch short reels on Instagram, of all kinds of delicious noodle recipes being created! I’m so embarrassed. Not only am I shorting myself of much needed sleep – because Mo wants breakfast served between 4 and 6am every day – but I’m damaging my eyeballs with the blue light rays from that stupid phone screen. And I can’t stop, the more doused in sauce the noodles, the more recipes I want to keep looking for. My weaknesses? Cheesy sauces and Ramen soup videos. Oh. My. Goodness. Somebody stop me. 

I’ve thought about the reasons behind my weird new pasta fetish and if we really need to analyze this new behavior, “Dr. Phil” style, I’d say it just comes down to two things: hunger and comfort. During my time on the island in Belize, I spent a lot of time being hungry. Not exactly hungry from starvation or because there was no food around, but because obtaining and preparing food was wildly different from what I was used to. Combine that with the much higher amount of exercise that I had to put forth to find, buy and prepare nourishing meals and I dropped some weight. Enough to notice, making my clothes much looser, and somehow making heavy meals of pasta became a way for me to eat more cheaply while trying to eat some calories. Besides, pasta is incredibly comforting. I’m not a big fan of carbs outside of pasta, which didn’t work well for me since I just moved to a place where every meal contains rice and beans, tortillas or bread of some sort. And I didnt’ want to live on processed grocery store foods when I was living in the tropics on the ocean where I thought fresh produce and seafood would just fling itself at me.

Thankfully a couple of the grocery stores in Caye Caulker sold gluten free pasta which I prefer. Finding fresh vegetables to put in it was usually pretty easy once I actually figured out when and where to get them – which took a few weeks (it wasn’t the grocery stores). If you’ll remember, I bought chicken from one butcher so when he had chicken breasts – when he had them – I was good to go, making a pot of food that would last for days. Of course chicken, especially white meat, is my least favorite protein so it was a struggle sometimes to eat enough. It was never a struggle to add more cheese or garlic to those noodles though.

Being able to put together a full meal was also comforting because it was a very different process than back in Tucson in the kitchen I had used for six years. On the island everyone has butane gas-operated stoves, which means a company has to deliver a full tank to you when yours is empty. I also had to learn to light the burner with a lighter each time I wanted it to flame. Because the tap water wasn’t drinkable, washing fruits and veggies in it wasn’t something I wanted to risk either. I used bottled water for everything from brushing my teeth, to drinking and preparing food. There were, and still are, these extra steps to everything from cooking to laundry and I have really learned to embrace them. I now enjoy the cooking and prep work necessary to make meals in my new space – the “Viking compound” – and I especially love making meals here because sitting down to eat them is peaceful and enjoyable.

If I’m going to continue full disclosure, here are the stats: I’ve been in this location for only 10 days and have already made four or five pasta meals, okay closer to seven. There is currently cooked gluten free angel hair pasta in the fridge and I am about to go grab it and make an early dinner. Let the obsession continue, otherwise I’ll get “upsetti without my spaghetti!”